Category: Guest Blog Posts

Kami thought she’d seen it all as a small time reporter for a New York Paper, but after hearing reports of the dead crawling from graves and attacking humans, she realized the world she once knew would never be the same again.

Forced to flee the city, she heads south where her two best friends Emma and Lou reside in search of answers. As a drunken joke ten years earlier, the three friends made a vow that if the world went to hell they’d survive it together, no matter what. With the pact now a reality, they are forced to face a never ending tidal wave of the dead, tornadoes, earthquakes, and massive storms with hundreds of miles to go. Along with their new dog, Snack, the girls get closer to their destination but no closer to answers as to why their world is filled with such evil.

Will their plan of survival keep them alive or will they drown in the sea of the dead?

The Survival Pact releases February 17th 2017 from CHBB Publishing.

Best selling author Christy Sloat currently resides in New Jersey with her husband, two daughters and Sophie her Chihuahua. When you don’t find Christy within the pages of a book you can find her being mommy, wife, crafter, and dear friend. She loves adventurous journeys with her friends and can be known to get lost inside a bookstore.

“When I pitched the gig I described it as a chance to ‘play cat’s cradle with Time.’ I hope you enjoy the game as much as we did.”
—from the Introduction

This Twisted Earth is the latest book from Dion Winton-Polak, the editor and anthologist behind Sunny, with a Chance of Zombies. Here, he theorized a version of our planet in which a strange cataclysm has left time itself in a tangle. This is a sandpit universe; in which the authors were encouraged to unleash their wildest dreams to create pulpy stories of danger, adventure, and dread-filled discovery.

This Twisted Earth contains 12 stories, and a further 12 creative fragments, including…

Stagecoach Mary and the Ride over the Mountains – a Western tale, pitting folk-hero Mary Fields against a pack of prehistoric predators.

Dead Horse Walking – a Mayan-noir detective story, digging into the mysteries of the world.

The Man who would be King of the Monsters – a sly spin on the Kipling yarn – featuring colossal monsters. Naturally.

Little Boy – a samurai leads an old woman through a death-haunted domain to find her missing son.

The Electric Eye of the Silver God – a rag-tag group of adventurers defy a horde of degenerates in order to claim one final, glittering prize.

Whilst the concept was originated by Dion Winton-Polak, the authors collaborated and brainstormed together to make this a truly shared world. The individual stories stand alone, but little details draw them together, and additional material by Dion is used to both strengthen this cohesion and plant seeds for future volumes.

The paperback edition of This Twisted Earth will be launched at FantasyCon by the Sea in Scarborough on 24th September, 2016. The editor and several authors will be available to answer questions and to sign copies of the book. There will also be an extremely limited run of hardback copies, available to purchase on the day.

“Something about the forest made her brain itch. Diagonally across the middle of England, from Bristol up to Hull, were a series of craters that looked alarmingly like footprints. Anglesey, for some reason, glowed. Much of Scotland was covered by a glacier. Across the Channel, in the place of France, was some kind of black smudge. Most of it was off the bottom of the screen but the smudge looked, even from space, like it was… writhing.”
“The Ghost in Michelle”
Matt Lewis

About Endless

“First, do no harm.” Blake Ryan swore that oath to become a doctor. Ironic, given that he spent most of his thousand year life sucking souls out of other immortals.

Things are different now. Using regular shots of morphine to keep his inner monster at bay, Ryan has led a quiet life since the Second World War. His thrills now come from saving lives, not taking them.

Until a plane crash brings Aleria into his hospital. Her life is vibrant. Crack to predators like him. She’s the exact sort of person they would hunt, and thanks to a severe case of amnesia, she’s all but defenseless.

Leaving Aleria vulnerable isn’t an option, but protecting her means unleashing his own inner monster. Which is a problem, because his inner monster wants her dead most of all.

Excerpt

This had to be what dying felt like. Floating outside my body, waiting for that final link to my life to be severed, only vaguely aware of indescribable pain. More screams than I could count rose up around me. Hundreds of footsteps beat against tiles. I couldn’t open my eyes if I wanted to. Not when it was easier to listen and wait. People shouted for a doctor or an IV, or a thousand other things that made no sense. I listened to all the chaos, trying to untangle it in my thoughts.

Soon, I could go. The peace around me was so relaxing, completely out of place in the clamor I heard. I wanted it. To rest forever in that peace. Why not? There was a very good reason, but I couldn’t call it to mind.

A numb buzz shot through my body and shattered my serenity.

It happened again. Only this time was more of a sharp pulse. The third time jolted like lightning. The fourth…Hell. Suddenly, the screams were coming from me. My heart’s relentless thundering added to my torment.

Pain.

Everywhere.

My chest burned like fire. It hurt to breathe. Cold air drove down my throat and into my lungs, amplifying the inferno in my chest. My skin felt scorched. It couldn’t be. It wasn’t right.

I had to see. I had to understand why pain dominated my existence like this. My eyes were fused shut. My breaths grew shallow, trying to draw air when there was none. I tried to clench my teeth. I bit hard plastic. A pipe. Cold air suddenly forced back into my lungs, out of time with my own breathing. This was wrong. It wasn’t safe. I had to see. The best I got was a little fluttering of my lashes.

A high-pitched beep shot through my head. It repeated again and again. I wanted to reach over and slam my fist into its source. My arm wouldn’t lift. Something kept it trapped. A scream rose up from the depths of my soul, but the pipe jammed inside my throat stifled the sound. I only managed a whimper, trying my best not to gag. More air blasted into my lungs against my will. What was going on? I was trapped in my own body, but why?

I needed to move. I had to move. Now. Before… Even… Even though… Panic gripped me. The beeps increased at a frenetic pace. I needed to move. To be gone. Didn’t matter where. Just not here. Not defenseless. Not trapped.

The air sucked out of my lungs. I gasped, choking on nothing, strangled by invisible fingers. I tried to convulse my body. To twist myself free of what’s holding me.

Nothing.

The air rushed back in a cold flood. Seconds later it left, only to return in the same amount of time.

There was a rhythm to the air. In… out… in… out… The breaths were slow—sleep-like. I concentrated on this rhythm, striving to clear my head. If I wanted out, I needed to think. Calmly. Clearly. Eventually, those irritating beeps slowed. I tried to focus past the sound.

Voices buzzed about me, adding to my need to see, to do something to protect myself. No one seemed to pay attention to me. Good. I could use that to my advantage.

I centered my every thought on moving my little finger. It finally jerked, but collided against something solid. So the thing trapping my arm was physical and too heavy for me to lift. It was better to be trapped than paralyzed. With luck I could escape my restraints. I tried my other hand, but it was cemented stuck as well. Right leg. Left leg. Damn it! Both trapped. I had to move!

No.

No, I needed to stay calm. I tried to make larger movements, biting the pipe in my mouth against the urge to scream in pain. There was no wiggle room.

Fearing that I might be blindfolded, I focused on blinking. It worked. My eyes opened and the blur faded, revealing ceiling tiles. Why would there be tiles? Where was the canvas of hospital tents? The distant sounds of bombs dropping? The power of their explosions rushing through my blood?

With eBook sales passing 20,000, the Accidental Sorcerers novellas are coming to print in August 2015, with the release of the first three stories in a single paperback. Join Mik Dragonrider, his love and fellow apprentice Sura, and their mentor (and Sura’s father) Bailar the Blue, as they journey Termag and stumble into new adventures. A sorcerer’s life was supposed to be sedate, but trouble has a way of challenging these three.

In the first book, Accidental Sorcerers, Mik begins his sorcerous career by awakening an ice dragon—and living to tell about it. He finds his mentor, a new life, and a first love… and more adventure!

The tale continues in Water and Chaos. The Conclave of Sorcerers sends Bailar, Sura, and Mik to Mik’s hometown, hoping to recruit other youths with sorcerous talent. But a misunderstanding sends Mik far away, on his own, to uncover the secrets of a nest of rogue sorcerers.
The Sorcerer’s Daughter begins with Bailar teaching Sura and Mik more combat magic, so they in turn can teach it to beginning apprentices. But when Sura discovers her high-born ancestry, and the price it carries, they may need all that training to escape!

The stories carry on… and a second collection (Books 4-6) is planned for a Spring 2016 release!

There will also be a companion eBook. People who buy the paperback can get the eBook free though the Kindle Matchbook program.

Larry Kollar lives in north Georgia, surrounded by kudzu, trees, and in-laws. His day job involves writing user manuals — some of which may have been fiction, but not by intent. He has had short fictional works published in the Hogglepot Journal, the Were-Traveler, and the anthology Best of Friday Flash, Vol. 2. Longer works include his first novel, White Pickups, and the popular Accidental Sorcerers series. For more of his strange fiction, and even stranger reality, visit:

While vacationing in Egypt. . .
Jeannette Walker, a cynical scientist jaded by swarms of tour groups and knick-knack shacks, is lured by a teenage tour guide to visit a newly discovered tomb. No other tourists there! Inside the chamber, she tumbles down a shaft and 3000 years back in time.

Now, in a world where deities walk the streets and prophecy stinks up the air, Jeannette is desperate for normal and the simple pleasures of sanitation and refrigeration. However, a slave master hawking a cat-headed girl derails her homebound mission, and Jeannette—penniless in this ancient world—steals the girl, bringing down the tireless fury of the slaver.

Saddled with a newly awakened mummy and the cat-headed girl, Jeannette, through her unparalleled experience gained from watching spy movies, contrives a plan to free them from the slaver’s ire, but will she have to dive into the belly of the beast to succeed?

Excerpt:
The torchlight caught an image of the Eye of Ra, omniscient and red, and a shiver crossed her skin. With a glance back at the stairs—a little voice in her head urging her to ‘just get the hell out’—she faced the tunnel again. She’d leave once she assured the kid wasn’t lost down here, injured and scared.

She grabbed her pack and slung it over her shoulder, careful of her injuries, and crept past the sarcophagus, certain the opening loomed wider than before. Not looking in for fear of catching a peek at something dead and rotten, she stepped into the darkened hallway, calling out. “Hello?” Her voice hung flat in the narrow hall, the acoustics wanting. It surprised her to find a network of passages and rooms. Each dry, empty antechamber sucked the fluid from her mouth and mocked her with hostile silence. As she wandered from one small chamber to the next, she expected to find piles of offerings, maybe gold or jewels, or even pottery, but the rooms housed only one blocky sarcophagus. Otherwise empty, they had been left incomplete—or emptied under ill-intentioned methods.

“Kid.” Her calls had turned into a mantra, lacking the passion of initial panic and had morphed simply into a word that slipped from her lips each time she entered a new room. “Kid?” Her guide played an amazing impersonation of somebody who was just not there.

When she hit the end of the passages, having explored each alcove with no sign of life, she began retracing her steps to that first room she’d tumbled into. The kid must have been on the upper level after all, and had not fallen down the threshold into crazy land like she had. Just her luck.

Exhausted, dragging her feet across the stones, she almost tripped on the flat surface. She just wanted to return to her hotel and sleep. The dreaded knowledge of the long trip back in the bike’s sidecar—assuming she could even return that way—and the fact that she was running out of water, sapped away her optimism. Trips were designed to be fun, a bit of adventure, a bit of pampering. She was ready for the spa treatment now. The tour planners had touted it as part of the package deal. She’d never had a spa treatment: no foot rubs, no facials. The knowledge that a hot bath and massage waited for her spurred her forward, though all she really wanted to do was close her eyes and open them again to her hotel room, the soft bed and bowl of fruit, the funky scent of the detergent that tickled her nose to the edge of a sneeze.

Damn it. This wasn’t what she wanted.

Frustrated, she stomped across the floor, her hard-soled hiking boots clomping as her mind soldiered through her options to make it back to El-Balyana, let alone Luxor. With her thoughts leap-frogging from walking miles, to hijacking a camel, to the cost in dog lives of a taxi trip to her hotel, she didn’t see the figure standing near the opened sarcophagus as she rounded the corner.

When she did, she froze.

Within the eon caught between one blink and the next, she absorbed details of the monster from a bad B movie: short, about her height, wrapped in linen gauze. Arms bound to its sides, it twisted and writhed, struggling to free itself from the linen embrace.

Then it moaned, a noise tapped straight from its slim chest, desperate and hungry, and Jeannette couldn’t contain her own scream.

Publisher’s Weekly Review

MacLellan’s fun debut drops Jeanette, an American tourist in Egypt, into ancient Thebes… A great sense of character evolution drives the plot, as Jeanette learns that her safe, mundane, passive modern life can’t compare… A strong conclusion sets this light fantasy a notch above its peers. (Oct.)

Vanessa MacLellan was born and raised in the farmlands of eastern Washington, works as an environmental engineer, and is an avid birder, naturalist, gamer, and runner living in Portland, Oregon. Her website is vanmaclellan.com.